What an assemblage! Men and women, young and old, married and single; moral and intellectual beings, in open contempt of their humanity, level at a blow with{137} horses, sheep, horned cattle and swine! Horses and men--cattle and women--pigs and children--all holding the same rank in the scale of social existence; and all subjected to the same narrow inspection, to ascertain their value in gold and silver--the only standard of worth applied by slaveholders to slaves! How vividly, at that moment, did the brutalizing power of slavery flash before me! Personality swallowed up in the sordid idea of property! Manhood lost in chattelhood! After the valuation, then came the division.

This was an hour of high excitement and distressing anxiety.

Our destiny was now to be _fixed for life_, and we had no more voice in the decision of the question, than the oxen and cows that stood chewing at the haymow.

One word from the appraisers, against all preferences or prayers, was enough to sunder all the ties of friendship and affection, and even to separate husbands and wives, parents and children.

We were all appalled before that power, which, to human seeming, could bless or blast us in a moment.